IF the human population
of St Kilda is somewhat sparse, during eight or nine months of the year
every island and stack in the group is tenanted by myriads of feathered
inhabitants, which impart no small amount of life and bustle to what
would otherwise be a desolate and lonely scene. It is, of course,
impossible to indicate an approximation to the number of the various
kinds of sea-fowl which annually occupy the beetling cliffs; and even
with the king of birds as registrar-general, and a select staff of
sharp-eyed falcons as enumerators, an ornithological census of these
islands would probably prove a very arduous task!

Macculloch refers to
Swift’s description of a land of feathers in his ‘Tale of a Tub,’ but as
I have failed to find the passage, I must content myself with his own
account of one of the special characteristics of St Kilda. “The air,” he
says, “is full of feathered animals, the sea is covered with them, the
houses are ornamented by them, the ground is speckled with them like a
flowery meadow in May. The town is paved with feathers, the very
dunghills are made of feathers, the ploughed land seems as if it had
been sown with feathers, and the inhabitants look as if they had been
all tarred and feathered, for their hair is full of feathers, and their
clothes are covered with feathers. The women look like feathered
Mercuries, for their shoes are made of a gannet’s skin; everything
smells of feathers, and the smell pursued us all over the islands —for
the captain had concealed a sack-full in the cabin.” The same writer, in
his notice of the Flannan islands, makes some interesting observations
on the harmony of the sea-birds, for the introduction of part of which I
think it unnecessary to offer any apology. “I have often been
entertained,” he says, “with the extraordinary concerts of the sea-fowl
in Ailsa, the Shiant islands and elsewhere; but I never heard any
orchestra so numerous, so various, and so perfect as this one, which
seemed to consist of almost all the birds that frequent the seas and
rocks of these wild coasts. I should perhaps do injustice to the
performers, did I attempt to assign the parts which each seemed to take
in this concert: but it was easy to distinguish the short, shrill treble
of the puffins and auks, the molodious and varied notes of the different
gulls, the tenors of the divers and guillemots, and the croaking basses
of the cormorants. But the variety of tones was far beyond my power of
analysis, as I believe Pennant had found it before me. It may appear
ludicrous to call this music melodious, or to speak of the harmony
formed by such ingredients: yet it is a combination of sounds to which a
musician will listen with interest and delight, although the separate
cries of the different individuals are seldom thought agreeable. Few of
the notes in this concert could perhaps have been referred to the scale,
if separately examined; yet the harmony was often as full and perfect as
if it had been the produce of well-tuned instruments, and the effect was
infinitely superior to that which is often heard in a spring morning
among the singing birds of the forest, while it was so entirely
different as not to admit of any comparison.” After alluding to the
special characteristics in the notes of the cuckoo, nightingale, thrush,
and other songsters of the grove, he goes on to say that “ in the
sea-birds there are few tones and few notes, but they are decided and
steady. The body of sound is also far greater; and, however inferior in
variety or sweetness the notes of the individuals may be, there is much
more variety in the harmonious combinations, and in that which musicians
would call the contrivance and design. Very often they remind me of some
of the ancient religious compositions, which consist of a perpetual
succession of fugue and imitation on a few simple notes; and sometimes
it appeared as if different orchestras were taking up the same phrases.
... I will not say that the gulls, the auks, the gannets, and the
cormorants will compete for the palm of music with Haydn’s ‘Chaos,’ or
with the solemn and wild strain of extraordinary and superhuman
harmonies with which the ghost first addresses Don Giovanni: but the
educated musician who shall choose to attend to these marine symphonies
will find that modern inventions have unwittingly been only following
nature, and may thence borrow valuable hints for his own art.”

In the course of my
insular rambles, I have more than once been struck by the wild and
curious music of the feathered orchestras — particularly at the little
island of Handa, off the west coast of Sutherlandshire, and at the
wonderful “Noss” of Bressay, in Shetland. During a visit to the former,
about eight years ago, I ascertained that its cliffs were tenanted by
not fewer than twelve different kinds of sea-fowl, including the
razor-bill, kitti-wake, puffin, sea-swallow, and oyster-catcher, besides
several species of gulls, guillemots, and cormorants. All these, I
believe, with the fulmar and solan in addition— and probably three or
four other species—are to be found in the St Kilda group. Captain
Macdonald of the “Vigilant” cutter informed me, on our return voyage,
that he thinks the sea-birds are not quite so numerous as when he first
visited St Kilda several years ago; but this does not appear to be the
impression of the islanders themselves. It is difficult to convey the
very faintest idea of their countless number. When coasting along the
rugged shores in the “Dunara,” besides the occasional discharge of two
fowling-pieces, a small gun was fired in the immediate proximity of one
of the most densely animated cliffs; and without going the length of
asserting that the sky was actually darkened by the myriads of wings set
in motion by the report as it echoed from rock to rock, I can honestly
declare that the cobalt of the heavens was at least partially concealed
by a canopy of feathery clouds. In disputing the accuracy of the popular
assertion relative to the interception of light by an infinite multitude
of sea-birds, Mr Wilson poetically compares them to “ the spray of
sparkling waters, or the mild effulgence of the milky way, . . . shining
with a pearly lustre, pure as ‘the bolted snow.’”

Apropos to the harmony of
the sea-fowl, Martin mentions that two distinct cries—grog, grog, and
birbir— are uttered by the sentinel of the solan geese under different
circumstances. Mr Wilson being curious, as an ornithologist, to
ascertain the truth of this statement, paid particular attention to the
matter during his visit to St Kilda; and he solemnly asserts that he
distinctly heard a voice giving utterance to the words grog, grog, “but
whether it came from the solan geese or the sailors, still remains to be
proved. The other monosyllable bir, bir (pronounced beer, beer), was
also heard frequently, but almost always in the earlier portion of the
day, especially during the prevalence of warm weather! ” From the
dictation of one of the islanders, Mr Sands wrote down the following
cries of four of the principal birds, that of the puffin being of a
peculiarly mournful and melancholy tone:—

Independently of the
friendship that existed between Thomson and Mallet, the tragedy of “
Alfred ” was their joint production; and it is somewhat curious that
both poets, in their individual compositions, devote several graphic
lines to the transmigration and other habits of the sea-birds of the
Western Islands. The following passage occurs towards the middle of
Thomson’s “Autumn,” after a reference to the annual departure of the
swallow and the stork :—

“Or where the northern
ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule, and the Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides;
Who can recount what transmigrations there
Are annual made? what nations come and go?
And how the living clouds on clouds arise?
Infinite wings ! till all the plume-dark air,
And rude resounding shore are one wild cry.
Here the plain harmless native his small flock,
And herd diminutive of many hues,
Tends on the little island’s verdant swell,
The shepherd’s sea-girt reign; or, to the rocks
Dire-clinging, gathers his ovarious food;
Or sweeps the fishy shore; or treasures up
The plumage, rising full, to form the bed
Of Luxury.”

In like manner, the
author of “Amyntor and Theodora” thus discourses of the feathered tribes
in his first canto :—

“But high above the season
full exerts
Its vernant force in yonder peopled rocks,
To whose wild solitude, from worlds unknown,
The birds of passage transmigrating come,
Unnumbered colonies of foreign wing,
At Nature’s summons their aerial state
Annual to found, and in bold voyage steer
O’er this wide ocean, through yon pathless sky,
One certain flight to one appointed shore,
By heaven’s directive spirit here to raise
Their temporary realm, and form secure,
Where food awaits them copious from the wave,
And shelter from the rock, their nuptial leagues;
Each tribe apart, and all on tasks of love,
To hatch the pregnant egg, to rear and guard
Their helpless infants, piously intent.”

Again, towards the end of
the poem, he alludes to the movements and music of the birds during the
glory of an Atlantic sunset:—

“Above, around, in cloudy
circles wheeled,
Or sailing level on the polar gale
That cool with evening rose, a thousand wings,
The summer nations of these pregnant cliffs,
Played sportive round, and to the sun outspread
Their various plumage, or in wild notes hailed.
His parent-beam that animates and cheers
All living kinds: he, glorious from amidst
A pomp of golden clouds, the Atlantic flood
Beheld oblique, and o’er its azure breast
Waved one unbounded blush ; a scene to strike
Both ear and eye with wonder and delight! "

The St Kilda land-birds
enumerated by Martin are, the hawk, eagle, plover, crow, wren, stone-chaker
(stone-chat or wheat-ear), craker (corn-crake), and cuckoo, the last
being very rarely seen, and that only on extraordinary occasions, “such
as the death of the proprietor Mack-Leod, the steward’s death, or the
arrival of some notable stranger!” When our author expressed his
incredulity respecting this belief on the part of the natives, they were
astounded by his want of faith, and on appealing to the steward, he at
once confirmed the truth of the allegation. Two sons of a distinguished
living ornithologist accompanied the party in the “Dunara Castle;” but I
am not aware that either of them was able to detect the sound of the
“magic” note! In his larger work, Martin describes the hawks of St Kilda
as the finest in the Western Isles, adding that “ they go many leagues
for their prey, there being no land-fowl in St Kilda proper for them to
eat, except pigeons and plovers.” Both the peregrine falcon and the
kestrel are to be found on its shores. He also speaks of a couple of
large eagles having a nest at the north end of the island, respecting
which the inhabitants informed him that “ they commonly make their
purchase (depreciation) in the adjacent isles and continent, and never
take so much as a lamb or hen from the place of their abode, where they
propagate their kind.” Besides several of the birds specified by Martin,
Macaulay mentions the raven (“of the largest sort”), heron, curlew,
magpie (very rare in other parts of the Hebrides) pigeon, starling,
lark, and sparrow. Next to the sea-fowl, the starling is probably the
most common bird in St Kilda. Whether such small birds as wrens and
sparrows reach the island by their own efforts or with the aid of boats,
he leaves “undetermined;” and with regard to the herons — “the most
watchful fowls in the world” — he says that their capture by the St
Kildans, “by dint of stalking,” may perhaps be hardly credited, “though
the fact seems to be very well attested.” He partially confirms Martin’s
statement relative to the eagles being perfectly harmless on the island,
and conjectures that this may arise from their necessities being more
than supplied, at least in summer, by the inexhaustible stores of eggs
which fall in their way. In winter, he presumes that they must make
frequent excursions to the neighbouring isles. At present, the eagle is
not to be found at St Kilda. Mr Wilson saw no sparrows; but, in addition
to the birds mentioned by Martin and Macaulay, he enumerates the hooded
crow, thrush, blackbird (an occasional visitant), corn-bunting, twite,
and two species of titlark. There are no grouse or other game birds; but
the minister informed Mr Wilson that, on a winter day, he once saw a
single ptarmigan on the hillside, after the prevalence of strong
easterly winds. The snipe remains all the year round. Towards the close
of the year, wild geese, mire-ducks, and a few straggling swans
sometimes make their appearance on the island; and occasionally birds
with foreign plumage find their way to its lonely shores.

Eight years ago (24th
June 1869), An Act for the Preservation of Sea-Birds was passed, which
is known in statutory language as 32 & 33 Vic., cap 17. Section 1
enumerates 32 different species as included under the term “sea-birds” —
viz., auk, bonxie, Cornish chough, coulterneb, diver, eider - duck,
fulmar, gannet, grebe, guillemot, gull, kittiwake, loon, marrot,
merganser, murre, oyster-catcher, petrel, puffin, razor-bill, scout,
sea-mew, sea-parrot, sea-swallow, shearwater, shelldrake, skua, smew,
solan goose, tarrock, terntystey, and willock. Of these, however, the
coulterneb and sea-parrot, the gannet and solan goose, the guillemot and
marrot, the gull and sea-mew, and the murre and razor-bill, are
respectively one and the same species. Section 2 defines the period
—four months—within which these sea-birds are not to be
slaughtered—viz., from 1st April to 1st August; and imposes a penalty of
one pound on every contravener of the enactment. The 8th clause declares
that the operation of the Act “shall not extend to the island of St
Kilda," the cause of the exemption being indicated in the 9th and
concluding section—to wit, “ the necessities of the inhabitants.” As
stated in a previous chapter, many a long day is likely to elapse before
the inhabitants of the remote island will enjoy the ordinary legal
protection of her Majesty’s lieges; and, on the other hand, if the
exemption in question had not been made, it would not have been a very
easy matter to have convicted a St Kildan of a breach of the statute.

Nearly all the sea-fowl
of St Kilda belong to three of the five families of the order of
Palmipedes, or web-footed birds—viz., Alcadce, or auks; Pelicanidee, or
pelicans; and Laridce, or gulls. I have been unable to compile a
complete list, but have reason to believe that the following are to be
found on the group of islands :—

In addition to these
seventeen birds, at least two others occur — viz., the eider-duck (Somateria
mollissima), belonging to another family (Anatidce) of the same order,
and the oyster - catcher (Hcematopus ostralegus), pertaining to the
order Grallatores, or waders. “Every fowl,” says Martin, “ lays a single
egg three different times (except the gairfowl and fulmar, which lay but
once); if the first or second egg be taken away, every fowl lays but one
other egg that year, except the sea-malls, and they ordinarily lay the
third egg, whether the first and second eggs be taken away or no.” In
alluding to the instinct and sagacity of the various sea-birds, he
elsewhere observes: “So powerful is their oTopyy, or natural affection
for their offspring, that they choose rather to die upon the egg or fowl
than escape with their own lives (which they could do in a minute), and
leave either of these to be destroyed.” Of the trilichan, or sea-pie, he
says that it is cloven-footed, and “ consequently swims not. If it comes
in the beginning of May, it is a sign of a good summer; if later, the
contrary is observed.”

The following is a list
of the sea-birds specified by Martin as occurring on the St Kilda group,
with the dates of their arrival and departure :—

The memoranda of the Rev.
Neil M'Kenzie embrace numerous references to the habits of the various
sea-fowl. “All the birds,” he says, “are so regular in the time of
leaving and coming, laying and hatching, that a kind of calendar might
be constructed from their migrations,” in forcible illustration of the
language of Scripture, “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her
appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe
the time of their coming.” He also informs us that all the different
kinds of sea-fowl are to be found on the islands by the month of April,
and that the following month (May)—during which almost all the birds lay
their eggs —is by far the most important season in the year to the
fowler. Macaulay states that, on the arrival of the principal birds,
“the most considerable persons in this small state assemble together to
congratulate one another on the great occasion.” . Most of the feathered
inhabitants leave the cliffs during August and September. By November,
the rocks are almost entirely deserted; and for about three months the
islands present a lonely and desolate appearance.

Some special remarks seem
to be called for respecting a few of the principal birds of St Kilda;
and my title warrants the assignment of the place of honour to a “ thing
of the past,” the extinct Garefowl or Great Auk, which Martin pronounces
to be “ the stateliest as well as the largest of all the fowls in the
island,” and which appears to have recently excited great interest among
naturalists. In his valuable work on the ‘ Birds of the West of
Scotland,’ Mr Gray recapitulates all that appears to have been written
regarding the garefowl. With respect to the etymology of the name—garefowl
or gairfowl — Jamieson defines both gare and gair as “keen or
rapacious,” which may perhaps have been characteristic of its nature.
Various writers, however, seem to regard it as identical with the
geirfugl or geyr-fugl’1 formerly common in Iceland and other high
latitudes, from which it may have found its way to St Kilda. Influenced,
no doubt, by a recollection of the proverb “ rara avis in terris','
Macaulay suggests that the men of Hirta may perhaps have conferred the
appellation of garefowl on the great auk as a corruption of rarefowl, “a
name,” he adds, “ probably given to it by some one of those foreigners,
whom either choice or necessity drew into the secure region ” ! The
author of the * Agriculture of the Hebrides,’ in his brief notice of St
Kilda, refers to this remarkable bird under the unpronounceable Gaelic
name of bunnab/iuac/iaille.

Martin describes the
garefowl as “ above the size of a solan goose, of a black colour, red
about the eyes, a large white spot under each eye, a long broad bill;
stands stately, his whole body erected; his wings short. He flyeth not
at all, lays his egg upon the bare rock, which, if taken away, he lays
no more for that year. He ispalmipes, or whole-footed, and has the
hatching-spot upon his breast —i.e., a bare spot from which the feathers
have fallen off with the heat in hatching. His egg is twice as big as
that of a solan goose, and is variously spotted black, green, and dark.”

Whether Martin actually
saw the garefowl does not positively appear, but his detailed
description seems to indicate that his information was at least derived
from the personal observation of others. Macaulay admits that he “ had
not an opportunity of knowing the very curious fowl, sometimes seen on
the coast of St Kilda,” but his notice of the bird seems to be worthy of
transcription. “It is,” he says, “ above four feet in length, from the
bill to the extremities of its feet; its wings are, in proportion to its
size, very short, so that they can hardly poise or support the weight of
its very large body. Its legs, neck, and bill, are extremely long. It
lays the egg (which, according to the account given me, exceeds that of
a goose, no less than the latter exceeds the egg of a hen), close by the
sea-mark, being incapable, on account of its bulk, to soar up to the
cliffs. It makes its appearance in the month of July. The St Kildans do
not receive an annual visit from this strange bird as from all the rest
in the list, and from many more. It keeps at a distance from them, they
know not where, for a course of years. From what land or ocean it makes
its uncertain voyages to their isle is perhaps a mystery.” The wings of
the great auk appear to have been so short as to bear the character of
paddles, thus resembling the penguin, of which it was the northern
representative. It laid its solitary egg—about five inches long and
three inches at the greatest breadth—on the bare rock, without any nest.

Little more than fifty
years ago the great auk appears to have regularly visited the island of
Papa Westray, in Orkney, where, about the year 1812, Mr Bullock had the
gratification of chasing a widowed male bird for several hours in a
six-oared boat, the speed of which was entirely eclipsed by that of the
auk. According to Wilson, “its powers of swimming and diving probably
exceeded those of any other species of the feathered race.” Shortly
after Mr Bullock’s departure, the object of his pursuit was secured by
the native boatmen, and is now preserved, in excellent condition, at the
British Museum. Another live specimen, captured off St Kilda by the
tacksman of the island of Scalpa, in Harris, was seen there by Dr
Fleming in the year 1821. While being indulged with a swim in the sea,
restrained by a cord fastened to one leg, it contrived to escape from a
subsequent owner. A former tacksman of St Kilda (M'Neill) informed
Professor Mac-gillivray that the bird occurred in that island “ at
irregular intervals of two or three years,” but no recent visitor
appears to have obtained any trustworthy particulars regarding its
existence in that quarter. Mr Elwes, who was at St Kilda in 1868, made
particular inquiries there and elsewhere respecting the great auk,
without eliciting any information.

Unsuccessful inquiries
appear to have been also made in Greenland be found in Dr Fleming’s ‘
History of British Animals,’ and accurate representations of it are
given in the works of Audubon, Wilson, Jardine, and other
ornithologists. In 1871, Mr Gray estimated the value of a specimen at
not less than £ 100, but it is now probably very much greater; and at an
auction in London, in 1865, four eggs of the great auk were sold at
prices ranging from ^29 to £33. Their present value is said to be not
less than from £50 to £60. Admirably manufactured forgeries of the eggs
have been offered for sale within the last few years. It has been
ascertained that there are thirty-four specimens of the auk and
forty-two eggs in different parts of the world. The eggs vary in size,
colour, and markings, some being of a silvery-white, and others of a
yellowish-white ground—the spots and streaks also differing in form and
colour. One of the four eggs in the possession of Mr Champley is five
inches one line long, three inches wide, and thirty-eight scruples
fifteen grains in weight Martin’s description of the colour of the auk
is only correct so far as it goes. The upper surface of the body is
black, except a patch of pure white, round and in front of the eye, and
the ends of the secondaries, which are also white. All the under surface
is white, and in winter the chin and throat assumed the same colour.
Several valuable contributions relative to the great auk have recently
been made to the ‘Ibis’ by Professor Newton of Cambridge, who fondly
cherishes the belief that the interesting bird may not, after all, be
actually extinct; and cannot, accordingly, persuade himself to address
it in the tender words of Milton, some of which, at least, are
sufficiently applicable :—

“Aye me whilst thee
the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide,
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world ;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks towards Namancos, and Bayona’s hold.”

The general impression of
ornithologists, however, as already indicated, is that the garefowl,
like the dodo, has entirely passed away, and that his abode knows him no
more, while the winds and the waves chant his requiem.

The only existing
sea-birds of St Kilda to which I intend specially to refer are the solan
goose or gannet, the fulmar, and the puffin.

The Solan goose,
Spectacle goose, or Gannet, frequents the islets and stacks adjacent to
St Kilda, but not the island itself, thus exhibiting the opposite
characteristic of the rook and some other birds, which seem to prefer
the proximity of human habitations. Its favourite haunt is Stack Ly or
Leath—already referred to—in the immediate vicinity of Borrera, which,
as a breeding-place for the solan goose, Mr Wilson pronounces “one of
the wonders of the world.” Not only the top of the stack, but every
crack and crevice all around is tenanted by sea-fowl, chiefly gannets.
The minister informed him that “ although he himself could not perceive
the slightest diminution of their amount, it consisted with his
knowledge that fifteen thousand had been captured and carried off within
the last few weeks.” Like most of the other sea-fowl, the gannets are
accompanied on their arrival by a considerable number of barren birds,
which have no nests, and sit upon the bare rock, at a distance from
their mated kinsfolk, with whom they do not interfere. It has been
suggested that these separatists might be young birds; but Mr Wilson
states that in the case of the solan geese this was proved not to be so,
the plumage being that of the adult bird. Accordingly, the same author
observes that they were probably “bachelors and old maids! ” Martin
states that the solan goose “equals a tame goose in bigness. It is by
measure, from the tip of the bill to the extremity of the foot,
thirty-four inches long, and to the end of the tail thirty-nine; the
wings extended very long, there being seventy-two inches of distance
betwixt the extreme tips. Its bill is long, straight, of a dark colour,
a little crooked at the point; behind the eyes, the skin of the side of
the head is bare of feathers; the ears of a mean size; the eyes hazel-coloured.
It hath four toes; the feet and legs black as far as they are bare : the
plumage is like that of a goose. The colour of the old ones is white all
over, excepting the extreme tips of the wings, which are black, and the
top of the head, which is yellow, as some think the effect of age. The
young ones are of a dark-brown colour, turning white after they are a
year old. Its egg, somewhat less than that of a land goose, small at
each end, casts a thick scurf, and has little or no yolk. . . . The
solan geese hatch by turns.” The name Solan is said by some to be a
corruption of Solent, an old designation of the English Channel; while,
according to others, the bird derives its name from the Gaelic word
siller (from sill, an eye), which indicates sharpness of sight—qui
oculis irretortis e longinquo respicit pradam. He soars in mid-air,
flying slowly up the wind, and balancing himself upon expanded wings
till he sees his prey, on which he darts down with unerring precision
and incredible force. The herring-fishers sometimes amuse themselves by
fixing a fish upon a board sufficiently loaded to float a little below
the surface of the sea. On observing the herring, the solan pounces down
upon it with so much energy that he perforates the board with his bill,
and falls an easy prey to the fishermen. The principal food of the solan
goose consists of whiting, haddock, pilchard, mackerel, and herring.1
Martin says that “ when it returns from its fishing, it carries along
with it five or six herrings in its gorget, all entire and undigested,
upon whose arrival at the nest, the hatching fowl puts its head in the
fisher’s throat, and pulls out the fish with its bill as with a pincer,
and that with very great noise; which I had occasion frequently to
observe.” The nest, which is strong and deep, is made of various
materials—grass, turf, sorrel, branches, sea-weed, rags, shavings, etc.—
whatever the old birds come across by land or by sea; and it is asserted
that they never gather grass but on a windy day, which is the solan’s
“vacation from fishing.” Martin states, on the authority of the steward
of St Kilda, that a red coat had been found in one nest, and a brass
sun-dial, an arrow, and some Molucca beans in another! Failing a supply
of suitable materials, the solan does not hesitate, if he gets a chance,
to steal from the nest of a neighbour; and the same author gives a
graphic account of a “bloody battle” between two gannets, consequent
upon a transgression of the eighth commandment. According to Mr Gray,
the flight of the St Kilda gannets cannot be much short of two hundred
miles in one day, without reckoning the distance traversed while they
are engaged in fishing; and he inclines to think that fatigue sometimes
compels them to discontinue their journeys. They seldom fly over land,
generally making a circuit when they meet with a promontory or island.
As in the case of the garefowl, the place whence they come in spring,
and whither they go in autumn, is not well known. They direct their
course southwards, and are occasionally met with at the mouths of the
Tagus and Guadiana. The young solan, or gong, is fit for use in
September, if the first egg is left untouched—otherwise, about a month
later. As at the Bass, it is slaughtered by blows on the head with a
stick. The flesh has a somewhat fishv flavour, but when baked makes a
tolerably palatable dish.1 Before the bird is able to fly it is larger
than its mother, and excessively fat—a most precocious baby—the fat on
the breast being sometimes as much as three inches deep. “The
inhabitants of Hirta,” says Macaulay, “have a method of preserving their
grease in a kind of bag, made of the stomach of the old solan goose,
caught in March. In their language it is called gibain; and this oily
kind of thick substance, manufactured in their way, they use by way of
sauce, or instead of butter, among their porridge and flummery.”

The old solan geese are
captured in the dark during the latter part of March. Macaulay gives the
following account of the mode of procedure: “While the creeping fowlers
hear them cry grog, grog, they continue to approach without any fear of
alarming them; but as soon as they hear bir, bir, they halt. If the
fowls who were alarmed of the approaching danger are not able to
discover the enemy, they give the signal of security, grog, grog; the
fowlers then advance, and lay, with great caution, the first solan goose
which they kill among his old companions: and the St Kildans,” he adds,
“ have given me repeated assurances that the living begin to mourn
immediately over their departed friend, with a lamentable tone of voice,
examining his body very narrowly with their bills, and are so deeply
affected that the fowlers improve their sorrow and confusion much to
their own advantage.” After giving the purport of this passage, Mr Sands
states that it sometimes happens that the entire flock flies away with a
“Beero! hurro! boo! ” when the fowlers have the mortification of
crawling back without any victims.

Fulmar Petrel

Probably the most
interesting of the existing sea-birds of St Kilda is the Fulmar or
Fulmar-petrel, which may almost be regarded as peculiar to that
island.and the adjacent rocks. According to Mr Gray, it formerly bred in
the south isles of Barra, and perhaps also in Mull; and one of his
correspondents recently informed him that its eggs are still to be
obtained on a stack off the far-famed Talisker in Skye. It is seen
pretty frequently in Orkney and Shetland, where, however, it is said
never to breed. There can be no doubt that its headquarters have long
been St Kilda, with which it is, in more than one respect, intimately
associated. One of its favourite haunts in the group is the precipitous
stack of Briorach, already referred to, lying between St Kilda and Soa.
On the main island it generally selects a lofty position on the cliffs,
and builds its nest on the grassy ledges. The fulmar is about as large
as a middle-sized gull—or, as Martin expresses it, “ a mall of the
second rate,”—which it greatly resembles, except in the formation of the
bill. From a stuffed specimen of a full-grown bird now before me, which
I saw noosed on one of the cliffs, I may give the following description
: The head, neck, breast, and tail are of a dingy white colour; the back
and wings (which are long) being slate-grey, and the latter tipped with
black; head round, neck short and thick; bill large, strong, and
sub-cylindrical, about an inch and a half in length, and of a
pale-yellow colour ; the upper mandible hooked at the point like that of
the eagle, and the tip of the lower one curved upwards—the tips of both
mandibles appearing as separate pieces firmly joined to the straight
part of the bill, which is marked by longitudinal grooves; the nostrils
inclosed in a tube open at the extremity, and extending along the ridge
of the upper mandible ; legs dark brown, and about three inches long;
feet pretty broad, and of a paler colour than the legs, with sharp claws
and a small hind toe. Martin’s engraving of the bird is about as like
the original as the secretary-falcon, or serpent-eater, of South Africa.
The egg, which is white, is rather larger than that of the solan goose,
sharpish at one end and somewhat blunt at the other; shell thin and
tender, being liable to break in a rainy season. “When his egg is once
taken away," says Martin, “he lays no more for that year, as other fowls
do both a second and third time. The young fowl is brought forth in the
middle of June, and is ready to take wing before the 20th of July. He
comes in November, a sure messenger of evil tidings, being always
accompanied with boisterous west winds, great snow, rain, or hail, and
is the only sea-fowl that stays here all the year round, except the
month of September and part of October. The inhabitants prefer this,
whether young or old, to all others. The old is of a delicate taste,
being a mixture of fat and lean—the flesh white; no blood is to be found
but only in his head and neck. The young is all fat, excepting the
bones, having no blood but what is in his head.” The male and female
hatch by turns for six weeks, and take the same period to nourish their
progeny. The weight of the fulmar is from two to three pounds. Every
family has from three to four barrels, each containing about two hundred
birds, salted for winter use. Martin further informs us that “ if the
fulmar comes to land, there is no west wind to be expected for some
time; but if he keeps at sea, or goes to sea from the land, whether the
wind blow from the south, north, or east, or whether it is a perfect
calm, his keeping the sea is always a certain presage of an approaching
west wind.”

“Screaming from his nest
The fulmar soared, and shot a westward flight
From shore to sea.”

According to Macaulay, “
so exquisitely nice are his feelings, and so strong his resentment, that
he conceives an unconquerable aversion for his nest if one breathes over
it, and will never pay it any more visits : for this reason, to plunder
his nest, or to offer indignity to it, is in Hirta a high crime and
misdemeanour.”

With its long wings
extended, its flight is easy and elegant—gliding as it does in graceful
curves, and seldom moving a pinion—the Camilla of the ocean, like whom

“She sweeps the seas, and
as she skims along,
Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung.”

On our return from St
Kilda on the 2d of July, two or three fulmars followed the “Dunara” at
least as far as the Sound of Harris, and I thus had a good opportunity
of watching their movements. The fulmar is extremely voracious, its
principal food being fish ; but it constantly attends upon whale-ships,
in order to pick up any offal that is thrown overboard; and it follows,
in flocks, the track of a wounded whale, alighting on the carcass for
the purpose of devouring the blubber. Sailor boys often amuse themselves
by catching attendant fulmars, by means of lines and hooks baited with
fat.

Besides being highly
esteemed by the islanders as food, the feathers and oil of the fulmar
form, as already stated, two important articles of export. Beds made of
the feathers are supposed never to harbour insects; but it is alleged
that they are difficult to keep dry. Mr Gray gives a detailed statement
relative to the oil, furnished to him by Mr Edward C. C. Stanford, F.C.S.,
from which it appears that, “ when genuine, it is of a clear, dark,
slightly reddish cherry colour, and has a powerful and peculiar odour —
an odour of which the whole island and all the inhabitants smell. It is
certainly a fish oil, and possesses nearly all the properties of
cod-liver oil. Its specific gravity is midway between cod-liver and
sperm.

After indicating other
chemical characteristics, Mr Stanford says: “I shall be glad if this
short notice of fulmar oil will induce any one to experiment with it for
medicinal purposes. I have no doubt a good deal might be obtained, and a
good market would be a boon to that isolated people.”

Fulmar-fowling begins on
the 12th of August—an ominous day on the mainland to another noble
bird—and lasts between two and three weeks. The fowlers are usually
accompanied by a few of the younger women, some of whom can carry about
two hundred pounds weight of birds. The oil is extracted from the
stomachs of both the old and the young birds, and enclosed in long
distended bags, formed of the stomachs of old solan geese. The
receptacle is held open by one man, while another, squeezing the body of
the fulmar, forces the oil through its gaping bill. It proves of great
service to the islanders during the long-continued darkness of the
winter nights. In order to obtain the oil, the fowler requires to seize
and strangle the bird in a rapid manner, otherwise it is immediately
squirted in his eyes, as a defensive movement; not, as is commonly
supposed, through the tubular nostrils in the surface of the upper
mandible, but through the throat and open mouth. Each fulmar contains
about half a pint of oil.

The estimation in which
the fulmar is held by the islanders may be gathered from the following
words of a St Kildan, which are recorded in the pages of Macaulay: “Can
the world exhibit a more valuable commodity? The fulmar furnishes oil
for the lamp, down for the bed, the most salubrious food, and the most
efficacious ointments for healing wounds. Deprive us of the fulmar, and
St Kilda is no more.” But we must also look at the other side of the
picture. What says the worthy Sysselmand, the king’s sheriff in Faroe,
and deeply learned in fowl-lore?“ Thirty years ago, the fulmar knew his
place: our fishers saw him out at sea 100 miles away, and only a stray
bird now and then was driven hither by a heavy gale; but now he has set
his ugly foot on my Holm of Myggenoes, and on the Goblin’s Head of Sando,
and every year he spreads further and further, and breeds in more
places. Nasty, stinking beast why, even his egg keeps its stench for
years; his flesh no man can eat; and if you sleep on a bed on which even
a handful of his feathers have been put by mistake, you will leave it
long before morning : and yet this fellow thrusts his nose in among my
gannets, and is slowly but surely driving them away, . . . just as the
Germans are overrunning Schleswig ”!

The last as well as the
least of the St Kilda sea-fowl to which I intend specially to refer, is
the Puffin, Tammie Norrie, or Sea-parrot, a fat and consequential little
bird, so well described by a writer in the ‘ North British Review’ (May
1864), as looking “ like a respectable butler at his master’s door, in a
black coat and white waistcoat, with a Roman nose red at the tip with
many a bottle of port! ” Probably greater numbers of this bird are
annually captured by the islanders than of all the others put together.
Mr Gray inclines to think that the puffin is the most abundant species
of sea-fowl on the west of Scotland, from Cape Wrath to the Mull of
Galloway, Ailsa Craig and St Kilda being two of its favourite haunts. In
1826, nearly a thousand puffins were killed, for a wager, in a single
day, by the powerful tacksman of Ailsa; and a few years ago, the number
annually captured in Faroe was estimated at 235,000 — an experienced
fowler slaughtering about nine hundred in one day. Mr Sands calculates
that upwards of 89,000 puffins must have been killed by the St Kildans
in 1876. “The bougir of Hirta,” says Macaulay, “is by some called the
coulterneb, and by others the puffin. This is a very fine sprightly
bird, in size much like a pigeon : it seems to be conscious of its own
beauty, cocking its head very smartly, and assuming great airs of
majesty. Its colour is black on the outer parts, and about the breast
red and white; the legs and feet are red (or rather orange), and the
beak fashioned like a coulter, edged above, and most charmingly painted
with red and yellow below.” The form of the bill is very peculiar, being
of a triangular shape, short, broad, and very much compressed, the depth
at the base about the same as its length—an approach, indeed, to an
equilateral triangle— the ridge of the upper mandible as high as the top
of the head, both mandibles being arched, and transversely grooved. Like
its wings and tail, the puffin’s legs are short and placed far back, in
consequence of which arrangement the bird sits very erect, like the auk
and penguin, resting on the tarsus as well as on the foot. Its flight is
rapid, straight, and strong, though not long sustained; and its swimming
and diving powers are very remarkable. It breeds in burrows of its own
making, among stones and splintered rocks, somewhat similar to
rabbit-holes, from which it is dislodged by dogs trained for the work.
The shaggy coat of a Skye terrier is extremely serviceable for the
purpose. The birds seize it with their powerful beaks, as the dog
traverses the long passages; and an accomplished terrier has been seen
to emerge from a burrow with half-a-dozen puffins dangling from
different parts of his body! Like the solan and fulmar, the male and
female puffins hatch by turns. The single egg which is laid is usually
deposited, by way of protection, at the farthest extremity of the
subterranean passage. Originally pure white, and mottled with ashy
spots, it ultimately becomes very much soiled, and before the young bird
is hatched, the shell assumes a dark-brown colour. The infant puffins
are chiefly fed with sand-eels, which the old birds carry in their beaks
in large numbers, and from great distances, hanging down on each side
like a beard. The Faroe fowlers allege that an old puffin can carry as
many as fifty sand-eels in his beak at once!

Had my space permitted, I
should have liked to say a few words about some of the other sea-fowl of
St Kilda —the guillemot,6 the razor-bill, the
cormorant, the shearwater, the storm-petrel, and the kittiwake and other
gulls ; but “ the line has to be drawn somewhere,” and the puffin must
close my catalogue of feathered portraits, which an impatient reader may
perhaps consider already too long. A history of St Kilda, however,
without a notice of the birds, would have been the play without Hamlet.
The mode in which they are captured by the hardy islanders will form the
conclusion of the present chapter.

Fowling, as we have
already seen, is the principal avocation of the St Kildans; and the
great ambition of every male on the island is to excel as a cragsman. In
the words of the Lord Register Mackenzie, “the exercise they affect most
is climbing of steep rocks. He is the prettiest man who ventures upon
the most inaccessible, though all they gain is the eggs of the fowls,
and the honour to dye, as many of their ancestors, by breaking of their
necks.” According to the “Apostle of the North,” “ the impulsive Celt
likes the excitement of an occasional risk, rather than the monotony of
safe and continuous Employment.” Nearly all the published accounts of St
Kilda refer to the feats of the fowlers, and the various modes in which
they prosecute their hazardous calling. Probably the earliest notice of
the cragsmen is embraced in the paper communicated by Sir Robert Moray
to the Royal Society exactly two hundred years ago, in which he
describes the dangers connected with the capture of sea-fowl by the “men
of Hirta” on the apparently inaccessible Stacca Donna. “After they have
landed,” he says, “with much difficulty, a man having room but for one
of his feet, he must climb up twelve or sixteen fathoms high. Then he
comes to a place where, having but room for his left foot and left hand,
he must leap from thence to such another place before him, which, if he
hit right, the rest of the ascent is easie; and with a small cord, which
he carries with him, he hales (hauls) up a rope, whereby all the rest
come up. But if he misseth that footstep (as oftentimes they do), he
falls into the sea, and the company takes him in by the small cord, and
he sits still until he be a little refreshed, and then he tries it
again; for every one there is not able for that sport.”

Both Martin and Macaulay
furnish curious details respecting the ropes formerly used by the
cragsmen. In Martin’s time, there appear to have been only three ropes
in the whole island—the property of “the commonwealth” —each being
twenty-four fathoms in length; and these were either tied together or
used separately, according to circumstances. “ The chief thing upon
which the strength of these ropes depends is cows’ hides, salted and cut
out in one long piece; this they twist round the ordinary rope of hemp,
which secures it from being cut by the rocks. They join sometimes at the
lower end two ropes, one of which they tie round the middle of one
climber, and another about the middle of another, that these may assist
one another in case of a fall; but the misfortune is that sometimes the
one happens to pull down the other, and so both fall into the sea; but
if they escape (as they do commonly of late), they get an incredible
number of eggs and fowls. . . . They catch their fowls with gins made of
horse-hair; these are tied to the end of their fishing-rods, with which
the fowlers creep through the rocks indiscernibly, putting the noose
over their heads about their necks, and so draw them instantly. They use
likewise hair-gins, which they set upon plain rocks, both the ends
fastened by a stone.” He then proceeds to describe the wonderful
dexterity of the fowlers, which he himself witnessed, and refers to the
early initiation of the young men of St Kilda in the dangers of the
cliffs. “The young boys,” he says, “of three years old begin to climb
the walls of their houses; their frequent discourses of climbing,
together with the fatal end of several in the exercise of it, is the
same to them as that of fighting and killing is with soldiers, and so is
become as familiar and less formidable to them than otherwise certainly
it would be.” Macaulay’s description of the ropes is more minute than
that of Martin. He states that each party of fowlers, which usually
consists of four skilful and agile men, possesses at least one rope,
about thirty fathoms long, “ made of a strong, raw cow-hide, salted for
that very purpose, and cut circularly into three thongs, all of equal
length. These thongs being closely twisted together, form a threefold
cord, able to sustain a great weight, and durable enough to last for
about two generations.” To prevent injury from friction on the rocks,
the cord was lined with sheepskin. “ In the testament of a father, it
constitutes the very first article in favour of his eldest son; should
it happen to fall to a daughter’s share, in default of male heirs, it is
reckoned equal in value to the two best cows in the isle.” He elsewhere
mentions a less costly rope made of horse-hair, nine or ten fathoms in
length, which they use in more accessible places. “Linked together in
couples, each having either end of the cord fastened about his waist,
they go frequently through the most dreadful precipices. When one of the
two descends, his colleague plants himself on a strong shelf, and takes
care to have such sure footing there, that if his fellow-adventurer
makes a false step and tumbles over, he may be able to save him.” Like
Martin, Macaulay describes, what he saw with his own eyes, the
performance of two noted cragsmen. “One of them fixed himself on a
craggy shelf; his companion went down sixty fathoms below him, and after
having darted himself away from the face of a most alarming precipice,
hanging over the ocean, he began to play his gambols. He sung merrily
and laughed very heartily. . . . The fowler, after having performed
several antic tricks, and given us all the entertainment his art could
afford, returned in triumph and full of his own merit, with a large
string of fowls round his neck, and a number of eggs in his bosom.”

As in the moral world
(where every schoolboy knows something about a certain facilis descensus),
the ascent of the cliffs, which is occasionally unavoidable, is more
difficult than the converse process. This is effected by fastening a
rope to two cragsmen, who ascend by turns. In the event of the foremost
slipping his foot, he falls only the length of his cable-tow, his fellow
usually breaking the fall. Sometimes loose stones are dislodged by the
feet of the uppermost fowler, and the rope is apt to be cut or weakened
by the sharp edge of the rock, giving way under the weight of the man
below. At other times, the strain of the rope is relieved when the lower
cragsman happens to reach a grassy resting-place; and if the turf gives
way before he has time to warn his comrade, he falls into the yawning
abyss, dragging the other along with him.

Mr Wilson gives a very
graphic account of the performances of the St Kilda cragsmen as
witnessed from a boat. After the minister (Mr M'Kenzie) had made a
preconcerted signal, “three or four men,” he says, “from different parts
of the cliff, threw themselves into the air, and darted some distance
downwards, just as spiders drop from the top of a wall. They then swung
and capered along the face of the precipice, bounding off at intervals
by striking their feet against it, and springing from side to side with
as much fearless ease and agility as if they were so many schoolboys
exercising in a swing a few feet over a soft and balmy clover field. Now
they were probably not less than seven hundred feet above the sea. . . .
A great mass of the central portion of the precipice was smoother than
the wall of a well-built house, . . . so that any one falling from the
summit would drop at once sheer into the sea. ... We could perceive that
the cragsmen, having each a rope securely looped beneath their arms,
rested occasionally upoi\ their toes, or even crawled, with a
spider-like motion, along projecting ledges; and ever and anon we could
see them waving a small white fluttering object, which we might have
taken for a pocket-handkerchief, had we not been told it was a feathery
fulmar.” He states that the cragsmen usually work in couples, each of
whom has, as it were, two ropes between them. “One man,” he adds,
“stands on the verge of the precipice, and the rope which he holds in
his hands is fastened round the body and beneath the arms of him who
descends, while another rope is pressed by the foot of the upper man,
and is held in the hand of the lower. . . . It is said that scarcely
more than one or two accidents have happened within the memory of the
present generation.” Mr Wilson was told that on one occasion two men had
descended close together, suspended by the same rope, when suddenly the
higher of the two perceived that several strands above his head had
given way, and that the rope was rapidly rending from the unaccustomed
weight. Believing the death of both to be inevitable if he delayed an
instant, and with but small hope even of his own life under existing
circumstances, life cut the cord close beneath his own body, and
consigning his companion to immediate death, was himself drawn to the
crest of the precipice just in time to be seized by the neck as the rope
gave way. Speaking of the boldness of the St Kilda fowler, Mr Morgan
says: “ Not content with the mere routine discharge of his calling, he
swings and careers down the cliff like a plaything jerked by an elastic
cord. Sometimes when the portion of the crag to be visited lies within
the perpendicular—that is, under that portion of the rock from which his
comrade tightly grasps the oft- tried cord—he strikes out from the cliff
with the steady sweep of a pendulum, the impetus landing him at the
wished-for ledge. About the age of twelve or fourteen, they first essay
the cliffs, no unimportant day to a St Kilda youth. During the last
thirty years, five men have, in the language of the island, ‘gone over
the rocks.’ In these words are registered the deaths of the daring
spirits who fall victims to the dangers of their calling. Their bodies
are seldom, if ever, recovered, being ruthlessly engulfed by the
voracious deep."

On the occasion of my
visit to St Kilda in July, one of the principal features in the
programme was, of course, a practical display of the prowess of the
cragsmen. The minister having made suitable arrangements with some of
the most experienced fowlers in the island, we ascended to the summit of
the cliff, which commands a magnificent view of Borrera and the adjacent
stacks—a pretty stiff pull of fully half an hour—and from the verge of
the precipice looked down a sheer descent of some eight hundred feet
upon the heaving rollers of the Atlantic. Furnished with the requisite
ropes and other appliances, four or five of the cragsmen approached the
edge of the cliff. One of the most agile of the party—a vigorous,
bright-eyed islander of about thirty years of age—taking one rope in his
hand, in order to steady his movements,

and having another firmly
secured round his waist, was gradually lowered down the perpendicular
face of the precipice by two of his comrades. Uttering a shrill Gaelic
cry, he descended barefooted, skipping and singing as he went, and
occasionally standing out nearly at a right angle from the beetling
cliff! Arrived at the narrow rocky ledges where the fulmar and puffin
sit in supposed security, a long stick, resembling a fishing-rod, with a
noose at the extremity, was let down to him from above, which he
cautiously extended, making the noose fall rapidly over the head of the
bird, the fluttering victim being immediately captured. Several fulmars
and puffins were thus secured for different members of our party, one of
the former—of which an accurate representation is given —being now in my
possession. It is difficult, by means of verbal narration, to convey
anything like an adequate idea of the sensation produced by the
wonderful performance which I have endeavoured to describe ; but with
the aid of Mr Carlyle Bell’s clever illustration, some slight notion may
perhaps be formed. To any one who has witnessed the daring procedure of
the St Kilda cragsman, the most startling feats of a Blondin or a
Leotard appear utterly insignificant; and if the most venturesome member
of the Alpine Club had been of our party, I feel satisfied that he would
have been compelled to “hide his diminished head”! Some sensitive people
are quite unable to contemplate the fowler’s miraculous movements; and
even in the case of the most callous spectator, the blood inclines to
run cold, and for once in his life he discovers that he is possessed of
a nervous system.

The exploits of the
cragsmen on the cliffs of Borrera and Soa and adjacent stacks are, if
possible, even more astonishing than their performances on the main
island. Stack Briorach, the pointed rock between Soa and St Kilda, is
regarded as the crucial test of a fowler’s pluck. Here the rope is of no
avail, and the rock can only be climbed after the fashion of the
celebrated “steeple-Jack,” lately gone to his rest. The man who fails to
accomplish the ascent never gets a wife in St Kilda. Only two of the
islanders achieved the feat during the first eight years of Mr
M'Kenzie’s incumbency—the inducement being a quid of tobacco presented
by an English visitor! The minister, who was present, described the
undertaking as “fearful.” When the fowlers reached the summit of the
stack, they committed great havoc among the unsuspecting fulmars, tying
them in large bundles, and flinging them into the sea, which was
crimsoned with blood, “as if the second angel had sounded ”! Macaulay
gives an account of the mode in which the fowlers formerly carried out
their expeditions to Briorach and the other stacks. When the weather was
favourable, they manned a boat with eight of their most skilful
hands—the factor’s deputy, who on such occasions acted as captain, under
the local designation of gingach, being the first to land and the last
to quit the rock. His description of the procedure is very similar to
that already quoted from Sir Robert Moray’s communication to the Royal
Society, but somewhat fuller in its details.

The exciting sport of
bird-catching is not confined to the male sex. Like the maids of ancient
Sparta, the young women of St Kilda employ themselves in fowling, their
hunting expeditions being chiefly directed against the puffins. Mr Sands
accompanied a detachment of seven vigorous girls to Borrera, returning
to St Kilda with the men of the party, while the women remained on the
islet for a period of three weeks. After two or three of the men had
landed, as already explained, “ the girls in succession jumped into the
arms of the man at the foot of the cliff, who lifted them on the slope,
where, by the help of the rope, they attained a level spot.” Laden with
their stores, they then fearlessly ascended by a hazardous route to a
height of some five hundred feet, where they reached a sort of terrace,
on which were a number of the cleits, or pyramids, already referred to.
After a few minutes’ rest, the damsels proceeded vigorously to business,
and with the aid of their sagacious and well-trained dogs, soon secured
a considerable number of birds. They, also set snares, by means of which
each girl bags several hundreds in a single day. Mr Sands was informed
that their place of abode, during their temporary sojourn in the islet,
was an old hut “across the hill,” which he conjectures to be the
hermitage of Stallir, described by Martin and Macaulay, and to be
afterwards referred to.

The eggs of the different
sea-fowl constitute an important article in the diet of the St Kildans.
Martin mentions that he had the curiosity to make a “calcule” of the
number of eggs bestowed upon his party during a three weeks’ residence
on the island, and he came to the conclusion that they amounted to
sixteen thousand. “Without all doubt,” he adds, “the inhabitants, who
were triple our number, consumed many more eggs than we could.” He
elsewhere states that he has seen the natives bring home, in a single
morning, twenty-nine baskets full of eggs, the least of them containing
four hundred large eggs, and the others eight hundred and upwards of
smaller ones. He refers to the astringent quality of the eggs, and the
effect produced upon some members of his party, in the shape of swollen
veins, by a too abundant consumption of them. Dr Macdonald, in one of
his Journals, also alludes to the large quantity of eggs collected by
the islanders. “The eggs of the solan geese,” he says, “resembling those
of our common country geese, eat well; but those of a small black bird
called by the natives the bougir (puffin), resembling in size and taste
our hen eggs, relish most of any I have eaten on the island.”

The following are a few
of the many anecdotes that have been preserved in illustration of the
dangers connected with fowling. On one occasion, the rope having given
way, a young cragsman, the only support of a widowed mother, fell down a
depth of several fathoms, lighting upon a grassy shelf, where
unfortunately no assistance could be rendered. All that his friends
could do was to approach as near as possible with a boat and comfort him
by words at a distance. On the evening of the third day, parched with
thirst, and starving with hunger, he became deranged, and was heard
chanting a simple native song, till death sealed his lips. On another
occasion, a father and son happened to descend by a single rope. When
they were being drawn up, the son observed that a sharp rock had nearly
cut through the rope, but he came to the conclusion that it was still
capable of bearing the weight of one of them. On hearing this, the
father urged his son to avail himself of it, as he was old and of
comparatively little use in the world. The son burst into tears, and
urged his father to ascend. With great reluctance he yielded, and
reached the summit of the cliff in safety. On the son trying the rope
after him, it gave way, as was expected, and the anxious father saw his
son mangled by the projecting rocks, before he had reached the yawning
gulf below. Martin gives an account, on the authority of the natives, of
an “extraordinary risque” which one of them incurred while engaged in
setting his gins. Walking barefoot along the rock where he had fixed a
gin, he happened to put his toe in the noose, and fell over the rock,
where he hung by the toe for a whole night, twenty fathoms above the
ocean, the gin proving strong enough to support him. One of his comrades
hearing his cry for assistance, came to the rescue, and drew him up to
the summit of the cliff!

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